Joseph Benzola, Jeff Harrington and Steve Layton have launched a new music blog featuring coverage of the online experimental and electronic music scene. With a focus on works in online distribution, beepSNORT plans to examine and curate the wild world of a genre of music which increasingly face the threat of a glut of artists calling themselves experimental but in actuality not experimenting at all. beepSNORT welcomes guest authors and plans to publish short commentaries from interesting music writers."
Posted by jeff at May 25, 2003 04:36 PMI'm looking forward to the developing beepSNORT blog.
Will someone go into depth about the "glut of artists calling themselves experimental but in actuality not experimenting at all"?
I would like to read an informed view on this.
Best Regards,
AgentA
http://www31.brinkster.com/headtones/
Hey, AgentA, I've written about this many times on other boards, in essence, I contend that the genre experimental has devolved into a continuum of essentially anything that isn't obviously in some other genre. Take a look at the MP3.COM experimental electronic or ES experimental genres and you'll find beatless ambient, drone, jazz.
Although I believe that genres are only as useful as they provide assistance in finding music, calling one 's self an 'experimental' artist and not engaging in the act of experiment-ing is disingenuous. And I would also contend that 'experimenting' does not mean something new to YOU. A genuinely experimental artist knows the recently experimented-upon territories and attempts to plumb those depths further.
Posted by: jeff at May 29, 2003 08:55 AMThanks Jeff. I'm in total agreement. So often I'm disappointed when sifting through the tracks available in the "experimental" genre of mp3 sites or elsewhere online for the reasons you mention. I don't know if sites need filters or if artists just need a little more info.
I guess I've been fortunate to have been exposed to musicologist/dj/journalists to steer me along.
Even so, I know there are still a lot of gaps in my knowledge of works by the pioneers both old and new.
Another pet peeve of mine is the ignorance of the music the genre label, "minimalism" initially pointed towards. I know "minimalist" composers never liked the label but at least it helped me find them.
Next on the list is what ambient has come to mean, but I'm starting to open up another can of worms I'm not ready to go into at this time.
write on,
AgentA
i`ve enjoyed what i`ve read so far
both content & style
good luck for the future
Perhaps, the label "experimental" is taking on a meaning beyond the exact definition. Experimental music may refer to specific characteristics--i.e. dissonance, unconventional instrumentation, etc.--instead of literally new, experimental music.
The same sort of thing happened to labels like "Avant-garde," "Modern Jazz" or "Traditional Jazz." What people usually mean by the avant-garde is music that sounds 30 years old.
Posted by: Jazzaloha at June 3, 2003 02:50 PM